Critical Remix Video: Practice and Theory

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutors: to be confirmed
• Assessment: a written or video essay (60%) and an oral presentation of an original remix video project (40%)

This module will explore critically, through audiovisual practice and theory, the field and forms of digital remix video. As exemplified, inter alia, by mashups, trailer remixes, machinima, culture jamming, subvertisement and vids, remix video is a complex, transformative, compositional, conceptual and critical practice. Digital remix cultures, along with their numerous (pre-digital) artistic and cultural antecedents, raise important questions about originality, creativity and the legal-ethical implications of re-editing based compositional forms. In the era of digital content creation, publishing, distribution and sharing, remix video methodologies also offer some highly sophisticated approaches to the cultural, social and personal impacts of contemporary communications technologies.

We will examine the history, theory, aesthetics and politics of audiovisual remix culture in order to arrive at a deep understanding of the rhetorical and affective power of its forms. We will learn about remix and its associated practices through exposure to and production of verbal or written scholarly material about these practices and their contexts, as well as through the close analysis and production of audiovisual and multimodal scholarly and creative works.

The module will be organised around lecture-workshops that will focus on introducing, viewing, analysing and discussing remix works, and their circulation and contexts, addressing in detail the questions they raise about aesthetics, ethics, legality, digital cultures and politics. These sessions will alternate on a fortnightly basis with practical lab-based workshops focusing on video editing and composition training, and the production of multimodal scholarly and creative works.

By the end of this module, you will:

• have an advanced understanding of the cultural antecedents, contemporary aesthetics, generic forms, ethics, legality, cultures and politics of remix video and related digital forms of found footage filmmaking
• have a robust appreciation of the changing technological conditions shaping remix practices
• have a practical command of basic skills in video and audio capture, video editing/found footage composition, and exporting
• be able to apply theoretical concepts to particular issues related to remix practice and cultures.